The apex court sentenced the four surviving convicts of the December 2012 Jyoti Singh Pandey (Nirbhaya) gang-rape and murder case to death and said that the intentions of the convicts made this one the 'rarest of rare' cases where the death penalty has to be given.
Just four days after the apex court’s verdict, in Rohtak district of Haryana, a 23-year-old woman was gang-raped, mutilated with sharp weapons and killed in a moving car. The sentencing to death in the December 2012 Nirbhaya (Jyoti Singh Pandey) case might bring some measure of closure for the family of the victim. But will it really make a difference in India's shameful statistics on sexual violence?
The chief minister of Haryana, Shri Manohar Lal Khattar, in his election campaign proudly said, "If they (women) want freedom, why don't they just roam around naked?" Besides institutionalised prejudice, weak investigations defeat the purpose of legal provisions and lead to acquittals. When the mutilated body of the Rohtak victim was taken for post-mortem, the police described the corpse as that of an unknown male.
The vacuum created by such systemic failure is, unfortunately, being filled by State-sponsored vigilantism that blurs the line between consensual sex and sexual violence, and the difference between goons and the police. I strongly feel that the Rohtak gang-rape case also be considered as the 'rarest of rare' and the guilty should be sentenced to death. Isn’t India the rape capital of the world? In Mumbai too women cannot walk freely on the roads even in the day time. I feel ashamed to call myself an Indian because the Prime Minister and the police are doing nothing to bring an end to these rapes.
Jubel D’Cruz
Via Email
